Delivering school supply boxes for over 3,098 children and 81 teachers in Nicaragua
Alongside its Nicaraguan partner organization, the Sister Maura Clarke Center for Education and Training (CECIM), horizont3000 hit the road in July and spent two days delivering school supply boxes to over 3,098 young children and 81 teachers from 11 different pre-primary and primary schools in the Ciudad Sandino district of Managua, an area characterized by socioeconomic hardship.
The boxes, sponsored by Sei So Frei Upper Austria and Querklang Ansfelden, contained items that many Nicaraguan families simply could not afford, such as crayons, notebooks, coloring books, educational materials, volleyballs, and other sports items.
Well-respected and widely known in the Ciudad Sandino municipality, CECIM is an organization that aims to contribute to the integral development of the local community and improve its standard of living through adult education training programs and a wide range of projects, including vocational and artistic-cultural education for children and adolescents. The relationship between CECIM and horizont3000 goes back all the way to 1994, when the organization was still operating under its previous name “OED”.
"horizont3000 has been supporting us for over 30 years, through different projects, for example through the Los Quinchos programme, which targets young children and adolescents.
We knew that the school box initiative had already been rolled out successfully on the Atlantic Coast and saw a need for it here. We picked 11 schools, made all necessary arrangements with the Ministry of Education, and approached horizont3000. Finally, in 2022, we implemented the initiative for the first time."
Ileana Martínez, Vice-President of CECIM
The donations that make the school box initiative possible come from collections made by Sei So Frei Upper Austria and Querklang Ansfelden. Sei So Frei has been funding school kits in Nicaragua for many years, each year together with horizont3000 and local civil society organizations (CSO).
While the school box initiative has seen horizont3000 at the forefront, in an implementation role, the two organizations also collaborate in other areas. For years, horizont3000 has supported the vocational training courses offered by CECIM, that prepared adolescents and young people for their integration into the labour market.
Currently, horizont3000 co-finances CECIM’s Con-Arte project, a follow-up of “Los Quinchos” programme, which provides a space for participation where children and adolescents, often from dysfunctional or underprivileged family backgrounds, are encouraged to develop their own artistic identities in drama, music, dance as a form of emotional expression.
Asked about the future of the school box initiative, Ms. Martínez sees an existing demand for further growth:
“Our municipality is home to around 24,000 students in total. There is certainly demand out there for another round of this project. Ultimately, however, it’s a matter of resources. The children would surely be happy if the project could continue.
As we could see for ourselves last week when we delivered the materials - nothing compares to the joy of a child!”
Ileana Martínez, Vice-President of CECIM
